


It's Quiet Uptown

by ephemeralstark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon typical character death, Child Loss, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, May Parker (Spider-Man) Needs a Hug, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Peter is dusted, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23639572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralstark/pseuds/ephemeralstark
Summary: Maybe if someone put a number on how many tears someone had to shed to be better, they’d be able to handle this. Maybe if someone said, ‘just cry a thousand tears for him and you’ll feel better’. Maybe then they’d be alright again.Except who could put a number on the kid?Not Happy, not Tony, not anyone. The kid was worth more than the number of tears his death caused.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 70





	It's Quiet Uptown

**Author's Note:**

> this is uh really fucking sad

_There are moments that the words don't reach_

Pepper knocked on the door gently, something that she had never felt the urge to do before, but as she listened to the sounds of her fiancé sobbing and cursing and pleading to a god she wasn’t sure existed, she knew that she couldn’t just walk in there.

“Tony?” His name came out as little more than a whisper, a plead to let her in – into the room, into his head, into his heart, into his healing and his mourning.

“Not now, Pep, please.”

His voice was wrecked, but she knew that, she had heard the despair escalating into dry heaves and choked gasps for air, she had heard the screamed curses and the animalistic growls of pure rage as he cycled through the stages of grief, before starting over again.

“Alright,” Pepper said gently, not willing to push the man who was already past the point of breaking, “I’m here when you need me.”

And she was.

Even though she wasn’t the one he needed and there was nothing she could actually do to help him except be there when he was ready to be comforted and whisper reassurances that it wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t to blame for this tragedy.

“Just please, go away.”

She did, but not very far, she could still hear the sound of heartbreak through the door from her new position sitting at the top of the stairs.

The air in the Compound was tense and thick. The kitchen was still completely trashed from when Tony had woken from a dream only a few hours ago – a dream where his kid had been there beside him, only to disappear when he woke up, as though he’d been turned to dust all over again.

_There is suffering too terrible to name_

“May, please, I know you’re listening to these messages just… please, call me back.” Tony sighed, listening to nothing for a few moments before hanging up, adding yet another message to an already jam-packed inbox.

He sighed, twisting the phone in his hands, it was one of his own. A shining leap in technological advances, he was a pioneer, and he couldn’t even save his fucking kid.

What use was being a genius when he couldn’t even save one of the most important people?

He threw the phone, _hard,_ it hit an antique vase causing it to shatter into a million pieces. The phone would be fine, the vase would never be the same again.

Huh, Tony never thought that his heart would have so much in common with a vase.

_You hold your child as tight as you can_

“May listen to me, please, I tried to bring him back.” Tony said, his tone pleading as he begged for her to understand how hard he’d tried to bring her baby back home to her. “He was never meant to be there in the first place. He was never meant to- to- to be there!”

He didn’t feel any shame about crying on the voicemail, it wasn’t the first time he’d done it and it wouldn’t be the last.

“I just need to see you, I need to explain, I’m so fucking sorry May, please believe that.” Tony said, the words coming out mixed with tears and gasps as his nose blocked with all the crying. “I held him, I don’t know if I’ve told you that before, but I held him, he wasn’t alone. He told me he didn’t want to go and…and I failed him. I couldn’t save him.”

_And push away the unimaginable_

When Pepper woke up the bed was empty beside her, the sheets cool, Tony must have been awake for a while and he’d left her sleeping. Gentle music filtered up the stairs and she could hear gentle humming intermingled – out of tune.

It was one of those days.

They were the worst days, the ones where Tony would greet her with a wide smile that didn’t quite soften the bags under his eyes, he would pull her into a tight hug and whisper into her hair how much he adored her.

Breakfast would usually be cooked and on the table, Tony had become a pro at making Eggs Benedict.

It was too good to be true, and when the illusion of happiness cracked, it cracked hard. There would always be a sign, Tony would get lost in thought for too long, his eyes would glaze over, maybe his humming would suddenly be too highly pitched, and then he was gone.

Pepper slid her feet into her slippers and pulled on her dressing gown, sending a silent plead to the same god that wasn’t looking down on them anymore to let today be different, let them be ok for one day. Please.

_The moments when you're in so deep_

“Tony what the fuck are you doing?” Happy asked, glowering at the man who was his boss, sitting on the floor of the Compound’s garage as though he was asking to be hit by a reversing car.

“Ha-Ha-Happy.” Tony hiccupped, giving him a delusional grin.

“You’re drunk.” Happy stated.

“Aren’t you clever.” Tony muttered, his words cold and heavy, he was aiming to hurt. “Maybe I should’ve promoted you. Maybe you are actually worth more.”

“You don’t mean any of this.” Happy said, used to Tony’s episodes. “Come on, let’s get you to bed. You can sleep this off.”

“No. Get off me!” Tony shouted, yanking his arm back so Happy couldn’t grab him, whiskey sloshed in the bottle. “Just leave me alone. It’s better like this. Maybe I’ll be able to forget the way…”

He trailed off and Happy noticed he was staring at nothing, eyes unfocused and glazed with a million unshed tears.

Maybe if someone put a number on how many tears someone had to shed to be better, they’d be able to handle this. Maybe if someone said, ‘just cry a thousand tears for him and you’ll feel better’. Maybe then they’d be alright again.

Except who could put a number on the kid?

Not Happy, not Tony, not anyone. The kid was worth more than the number of tears his death caused.

_It feels easier to just swim down_

Bottles littered the floor of the bedroom that Pepper had stopped staying in, so maybe it was just Tony’s room now. Had they become that distant? She was watching her most loved one drink himself to death in a way that was scarier than anything she’d seen before.

Her heart was broken.

His heart was broken.

The bottles on the floor were broken.

Something needed to change.

_The Hamiltons move uptown_

“It’s cute.” Pepper said, looking around the ramshackle lake house that must have once been a thing of beauty, she turned to look at Tony, as though she was pleading with him to agree.

“Yeah,” he grunted, “cute.”

Moving away had been her idea – a fresh start. It felt like he was accepting things as they were, like he was giving up and giving in.

He felt weak.

Pepper called him strong.

May didn’t call him at all.

_And learn to live with the unimaginable_

Tony bought an alpaca and named him Gerard. He was waiting for Pepper to accuse him of being insane. He was expecting Rhodey to appear with an intervention speech planned. He even thought Happy may creep out through the night and get rid of the animal that didn’t belong in their lives. Because nothing did. Not now.

Instead, Pepper looked at the alpaca and then at Tony and then back at the alpaca before bursting into floods of laughter.

“I can’t believe you brought home a damn llama.” She muttered though peals of refreshing laughter.

“It’s an alpaca.” Tony told her, offended that she hadn’t realised that, seriously who was he marrying?

He laughter lingered in his heart for hours after it had faded from the air.

Maybe they would be alright.

He left another message for May.

_I spend hours in the garden_

Pepper had taken up gardening some time after discovering she was pregnant, she thought it was soothing to carefully mould the garden to be as beautiful as her family would be.

She would talk about the various flowers and plants she was planting to her baby. Their baby. She would hope that when the little one was born; Tony’s progress wouldn’t shatter.

She prayed that Tony wouldn’t look at their baby and see the child that he would never hold again.

“These are white chrysanthemums,” she murmured, “they’re a sign of lamentation and grief. I don’t know if you can feel it all in there baby, but things aren’t great at the moment. Don’t worry though, your big brother would have loved you as much as me and Daddy will.”

Pepper felt sorry that their baby would never know the laughter that they had all lost from their lives.

_I walk alone to the store_

“We’re running low on diapers.” Tony said as he handed one to Pepper who had her hands full with a screaming baby. “I’ll go to the store and get some more.”

“Do you want me to get Morgan dressed? We can come with you.” Pepper offered.

Tony traced a finger along Morgan’s tiny, chubby cheek, and the screaming settled as she stared up at her Daddy with wide eyes. Tony’s heart was physically hurting with how much he loved her, he would die for her.

“No, it’s fine, I kinda want a walk.” Tony said, telling himself not to tell his four-month-old daughter that he would lay down his life to keep her safe.

“It’s five miles.” Pepper said with a frown.

“I need the air.”

God, Tony was _scared._ He looked at Morgan and he saw all the ways he could fail her. All the mistakes he could make.

Like he had with Peter.

_And it's quiet uptown_

Morgan grinned her childish grin as she scribbled furiously with her crayons, opting for the red and blue ones over all the rest.

“Dada, look.” She said, thrusting the paper in his face, misjudging the distance as it hit his nose.

He laughed, his eyes crinkling as he took the paper from her and held it at a distance.

“Oh, would you look at that!” He exclaimed as his eyes raked over the drawing.

“It’s Petey.”

“What?” Her Dada seemed to grow pale and she took her picture back, wondering whether she had been bad by drawing Petey.

The edge had torn slightly from her Dada holding it too hard.

“How do you know about P- him?”

“Momma.” Morgan said, her lip starting to stick out as tears burned at the corners of her eyes.

Her Dada saw the tears and pulled her in for a hug, “sorry Morgs, I love it, it just surprised me. This is gonna go in a frame, ok?”

“Ok.”

_I never liked the quiet before_

“Hey, May, it’s me,” Tony said quietly, “I know you haven’t changed your number, and I just wanted to call and let you know I still want to meet up. It’s been years, please, let me explain.”

He sighed, staring at the childish scribbles that covered the paper that he’d folded and kept in his wallet. His son.

“Look, I just, please.” Tony pleaded. “You could come up here, it’s quiet – well usually, Morgan is pretty loud, but you know how kids are… fuck. Sorry.”

He hung up.

He cursed himself.

_I take the children to church on Sunday_

“Sit still, baby, we won’t be here for long.” Pepper whispered to Morgan as she stared at the preacher up front hoping he hadn’t heard her.

Hoping he didn’t know about her wishes to sneak out half-way through the sermon.

She didn’t know why she was there, or why she had made Tony and Morgan come too.

She did however know that there was no one watching down on her.

If they were then she would have a reason as to why.

Why her daughter lost her brother.

Why her husband lost his son.

Why an aunt lost her baby.

Why Pepper herself lost an opportunity to get to know the kid that was so widely loved.

_A sign of the cross at the door_

When they left Tony stared at the cross over the door and willed himself not to rip it from its hold and throw it down into the mud.

How could anyone say this was right? How could anyone say this was God’s will? This was Thanos’ will and Tony wasn’t prepared to accept that.

He refused to.

He wasn’t a religious man and he had hoped that religion could bring him some peace, but all it brought was more frustrations and anger. Still though, as he looked around, at the fellow people with grief-stricken faces who had also lost loved ones – he couldn’t blame them for seeking comfort in something like faith.

He wished it had worked for him too.

_And I pray_

Tony tried praying. He tried to bargain with God. He promised to become a man of faith if only he was given some hope that there was a way to overcome everything. Or even to bring them back.

He wanted his son back.

_That never used to happen before_

He wanted his family to be complete.

_Philip, you would like it uptown, it's quiet uptown_

“May, look, I just want to say I miss him too.” Tony said quietly, holding the phone like it was a lifeline. “I know you probably think I don’t have the right to, that I should delete your number and leave you to your grief and memories.”

Tony laughed bitterly.

“Who am I kidding? We both know grief and memories are dangerous. I nearly drank myself to death you know?” Tony said. “I was hospitalised for withdrawal, Pepper made me join AA. I got my three year coin last night. I’m doing well, but I guess, we both know things could be better.

“I just- I fucking miss him. I keep expecting him to appear, to turn up with that shit eating grin, I can almost _hear_ his sassy answers whenever I ask him a question that was too easy. I used to wish that I had died up there, not him. But now I look at Morgan and I get angry. No one should have died. No one.”

_You knock me out, I fall apart_

“Three years Tony!” Pepper yelled, her face red from crying, angry splotches of red and white creating a patchwork on her skin as though she couldn’t decide whether she was pissed or sad.

Tony blinked at her.

“Three fucking years!” She screamed once more. “Why didn’t you come to me? Or Rhodey? Or anyone?”

“Don’t shout.” Tony slurred, watching the light create a halo around her head. No. That wasn’t right. Angels didn’t exist. “Think of Morgan.”

“Think of-” Pepper faltered, seemingly blanking with anger. “Think of Morgan? I did you asshole, I sent her to stay with her Uncle Happy. I made sure she was safe. What did you do, huh? You drank a bottle of vodka. Really Tony, Vodka?”

“I had to.”

“No. you didn’t.”

_Look at where we are_

Pepper knew that Tony was crying at night when he thought the household was asleep, she watched him from their bedroom window as he walked a hundred feet or so down the drive and collapsed to the ground with grief.

Her heart ached for him, because no matter how much time passed, the pain wasn’t going anywhere. 

_Look at where we started_

“I lost the Kid.”

Pepper remembered hearing Tony mutter those words in tragic desperation to Steve as his legs shook and he struggled to hold himself upright.

She remembered registering the meaning.

She remembered the heartbreak in his eyes.

She remembered the day that he forgot how to smile.

_I know I don't deserve you, Eliza_

“May. This is Pepper, uh Potts or Stark. I’m Tony’s wife.” Pepper said carefully. “I know you don’t owe me anything, but please speak with Tony, hear him out, and if you decide that what he has to say isn’t worth your time I will make sure he never calls you again.”

She hung up and hoped she hadn’t made a mistake.

_But hear me out_

“Don’t talk.” Tony held his breath and listened to the voice that he’d been desperate to hear for years. “I’m not having this conversation over the phone. I’ll text you a location. Be there at two o’clock on Friday. I’ll wait for five minutes, and if you chose not to come then I want you to delete my number and never call me again.”

She hung up.

Tony smiled.

_That would be enough_

“Why me?” Was the first thing May said when he silently sat on the bench beside her. “Why out of all the people in the world, were you so damn desperate to see me?”

“Because you understand.” Tony said simply.

“You don’t.” May snapped, anger painting her tone and Tony realised that she hadn’t entered the final stage of grief yet either.

“I do, I loved him.” Tony said. “I don’t think I ever told him that.”

_If I could spare his life_

May was silent, staring ahead in a stoic anger that seemed to burn into Tony’s confidence and break the steri-strips that covered the cracks in his heart.

“I wish things had gone differently.” Tony said, seeming prepared for her silence. “I wish I had brought him home with me.”

_If I could trade his life for mine_

“You know, if it had been a bullet, I would have stepped in front of it in a heartbeat. I would have taken poison for him, and I wouldn’t have thought twice, but the dusting…” Tony trailed off glancing to his side, a single tear was making its way down May’s face, she was listening. “I couldn’t _do_ anything. It was random. Fifty percent of the planet.

“I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t save him. I held him as he… he begged me to help. He was so scared and I fucking failed.”

_He'd be standing here right now_

“I don’t think the world would have darkened so much if it had been me who’d died.” Tony admitted. “Peter brought joy to so many people. He brightened so many lives. He was the reason for so many smiles, and I just, I’m so sorry.”

_And you would smile, and that would be enough_

May looked at Tony, she looked at the grey hairs that had developed with grief and knew that she mirrored him. The loss of a child truly aged a person, but why wouldn’t it? They were never meant to outlive their babies.

She took a breath, and clamped her mouth shut, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t empathise with the man who failed to bring her baby home.

_I don't pretend to know_

“Morgan drew me a picture a while ago.” Tony said. “It was just a mass of blue and red squiggles and had no shape or anything, but she told me it was him and my heart broke. She deserves to know who he was, but I can’t tell her, I can’t even bring myself to say his name.”

He let out a bitter laugh.

“I promised myself that I would keep his memory alive, but I can’t do it, the memories _hurt._ I want to talk about him, I want to share these things. I just don’t know how.”

_The challenges we're facing_

“I had a relapse not so long ago.” Tony admitted. “I lost my three year coin. I’m back up to my six months now but I don’t know how long that’ll last. I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to drink. I don’t want any of this.

“I get so mad sometimes, because he was so strong, and I’m so weak. I feel like if he was here he’d be disappointed in the man I’ve become.”

_I know there's no replacing what we've lost_

“I need to be better for Morgan.” Tony said. “She’s my world now, and at first I was scared that I was trying to replace him, but I think we both know that’s impossible. Kids aren’t replaceable, not at all and I could have a thousand, but I’d still miss him.

“He was only in my life for a short time, I can’t imagine how it must feel to lose him after all the years you had with him.”

_And you need time_

May had lost her husband, she’d lost her baby, and as she sat there in the park with the richest man in the US she wondered if somewhere she’d lost herself too.

_But I'm not afraid_

Peter was better than her, she wasn’t ashamed to admit it, because it meant that she’d done something right when raising him, she’d taught him to forgive.

She just wished that she knew how to teach herself that.

_I know who I married_

Ben wouldn’t have struggled so much. He would have probably been the one to reach out to Tony rather than the other way round, and he certainly wouldn’t have avoided his calls and left his voicemails unanswered for years.

Ben was better than May.

Peter was the best of them all.

And yet, May was the last one standing.

How she wished she wasn’t.

_Just let me stay here by your side_

If she had been there on that planet, she liked to think everything would have gone better, or at least she could’ve held her baby and gotten some closure. Although, as she looked sideways at Tony, she realised that maybe closure was a lie.

Maybe she would never be able to accept what had happened.

_That would be enough_

Maybe she would spend the rest of her days bitterly trying to make everyone else feel as terribly as she did.

Peter would be so disappointed.

_If you see him in the street, walking by her side_

He really would. If May believed he was in a better place then maybe he would’ve been watching down on her, shaking his head sadly as she turned into a bitter, vindictive woman solely bent on destroying Tony’s chance to move on with his life.

_Talking by her side, have pity_

She pitied Tony.

_Eliza, do you like it uptown? It's quiet uptown_

Most of all though, she pitied herself, and she hated who she had turned into.

_Look around, look around, Eliza_

Tony was still talking away, his monologue uninterrupted. May wasn’t caring though, she didn’t know what to say to him, so she let him continue.

_(They are trying to do the unimaginable)_

May could remember Peter’s smile, his bright eyes, his curls…

_There are moments that the words don't reach  
There is a grace too powerful to name  
We push away what we can never understand  
We push away the unimaginable_

The death of a child. It was something so few people truly understood, and for that May was thankful, it was a soul destroying thing that she wouldn’t wish on anyone.

No one deserved to feel the way she did.

No one.

_They are standing in the garden_

She couldn’t even articulate how she felt. It was impossible to find the words. She didn’t think anyone in the world would be able to explain the way the earth felt like it was constantly disappearing from beneath her feet, or how her heart felt like it had vanished but also like it was being held in a tight vice.

_Alexander by Eliza's side_

She would wake up some nights and make her way along to his room. She wouldn’t sit on his bed, she couldn’t ruin the lingering smell of his shampoo like that. She tried to be as fleeting as possible during her visits, it wouldn’t be as comforting if she made her presence known in the room.

_She takes his hand_

Tony was ready to leave, he’d came and said his piece, his heart was on his sleeve and he wasn’t sure that May would ever say anything. But he’d said what he needed.

He made to stand up.

A hand reached out and latched onto his own, causing him to freeze in place, scared to move. He turned to look at her, her face was red and blotchy, eyes bloodshot.

And…

She launched herself at him, wet sobs soaking through his jumper, as she kept clutching his hand.

“I wanted to keep hating you.” She said through shoulder shaking sobs.

“I know.”

_It's quiet uptown_

“I… I can’t,” she admitted, “I know how much Peter loved you, he would look up to you so much and every night when he got home it was all ‘Mr. Stark this…’ and ‘Mr. Stark that…’ he admired you long before he knew you.”

_Forgiveness. Can you imagine?_

“I admired him too,” Tony said, “he was the bravest kid I’ve ever known.”

“I found one of his jumpers last week, it ended up in my laundry pile and I still don’t know how,” May admitted, “I started crying when I saw it, and I ended up sitting on the cold tile floor and crying in front of the washing machine for two hours.”

“I miss telling him to pick up his gross socks.” Tony admitted.

“He used to leave them everywhere.” May agreed with a tearful smile. “I once found one in the fridge.”

“How the fuck?”

“He said he was grabbing some juice and forgot it in there.” May said with a snort.

“I repeat: how the fuck?”

“I miss him so damn much.” May said.

_Forgiveness. Can you imagine?_

“I miss watching him gorge himself on about five portions of take out.” Tony said. “Sometimes I order his usual, Pep gets pissed and we end up eating the leftovers for a week.”

“I go to our usual Thai place once a month and order his meal along with mine,” May said, “I just sit there hoping that he’ll walk through that door, that he’ll sheepishly pull up a seat and ask me for a new backpack, because he’s left his somewhere dumb again.”

“You have a backpack waiting for him, don’t you?” Tony asked knowingly.

“I have five.”

_If you see him in the street, walking by her_

“I have new Spider-Man suit schematics waiting for him,” Tony admitted, “every now and then I’ll power up his AI and do some updates on her and she’ll ask the same question: where’s Peter? How do I explain to an Artificial Intelligence that was designed for him that he’s not here anymore?”

_Side, talking by her side, have pity_

“We’re messes.” May mumbled, running a hand through her tangled greying hair.

“We lost a big part of ourselves.”

“We’re people trying to exist when our souls have been torn to shreds.” May murmured.

_They are going through the unimaginable_

“I’m going to get him back.” Tony promised.

“Don’t.” May said quietly. “The only thing worse than not having him here is listening to you promise to get him back when we both know it won’t happen. I can’t handle that hope. The disappointment will kill me.”

“Can I call you?” Tony asked instead.

“Sure, we should make this a weekly thing.” May said. “I have some baby pictures you might want to see.”

“I can’t think of anything better.” Tony said, his heart thudding in his chest as the pain of loss caused tears to prick in the corners of his eyes.

He also couldn’t think of anything worse.

**Author's Note:**

> so, dont kill me and congrats for making it to the end! 
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @[ephemeralstark](https://ephemeralstark.tumblr.com/) and let me know what you thought!! if you want something happier maybe check out my other fics? this is the saddest one i have i promise, the rest have happy endings!


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